Broward man arrested in alleged Delray Beach carjacking

An 18-year-old Broward County man is in the Palm Beach County Jail after he allegedly carjacked a woman in Delray Beach, according to a police report.

Ariel Luis Collazo, 18, told Delray Beach police that he used a BB gun in the carjacking so that he wouldn’t be charged with armed robbery.

Collazo

Collazo’s dubious logic didn’t work. The Sunrise resident is facing charges of carjacking with a weapon, using or displaying a weapon during a felony, assault on an officer, resisting an officer without violence and fleeing and eluding officers. Collazo is being held in lieu of $124,500 bail.

Police say the carjacking took place Tuesday around 8:15 p.m. on the 700 block of Dotterel Road. The female victim told police that she was approached by Collazo, who demanded her car keys and purse.

When the victim said that her husband was a federal agent, Collazo asked a female accomplice, “What should I do?”

“Let’s go,” said the female, who Collazo told police was a 14- or 15-year-old friend.

Collazo left the scene without taking anything from the woman. He later told police that he fled “fearing that (the victim’s) husband was actually a federal officer and that he would come after them,” according to the arrest report.

Delray Beach police caught up with Collazo in a Target parking lot at 1200 W. Linton Boulevard and gave chase. Collazo eventually crashed the Ford Explorer he was driving at the intersection of N.W. 49th Avenue and N.W. 6th Court.

Collazo later told detectives that he stole the Ford Explorer at a Walgreens in Broward County. Collazo said a middle school student was in the vehicle when he stole it. He ordered the boy out, then picked up the female accomplice, who the arrest report refers to only as “Leisha.”

Police were able to find a handgun that Collazo threw out the window as he was being chased by police after the attempted carjacking in Delray Beach.